As many of you may be aware the Playstation network is down and we are hearing reports of their second online system going down as well. This has exposed their users’ data, and credit card details, passwords and names might all have gotten into the hands of the attackers.

This has got many people wondering how a trillion dollar company like Sony was even open to attack let alone how they are not able to bring it online almost two weeks after it went down. We are definitely seeing an increased level in sophistication of the cyber threats that we are facing. According to the government the overall cost to the UK economy is an estimated £27bn a year.

Of the estimated £27bn that is lost due to online damage and theft a small part can be attributed to government or state sponsored attacks, but the vast majority, a staggering £21bn, was incurred by private business and over half of that was made up of intellectual property theft alone.

There is no doubt that industrial espionage and cyber theft is on the rise, in no small part due to easily available tools that are available for online attack. If you are a contractor you will be eager to protect your valuable data and ensure your machines are not disabled due to an attack. But if a trillion dollar company can’t protect themselves, what can a lone contractor do?

There is still a lot that can be done to minimise the risk and the treat of online attack and realistically you won’t be facing the same level of attack that Sony has just endured. I’m sure many of you will know the importance of a little bit of security and maintenance procedures:

* Keep all your programs up to date, remove/replace vulnerable applications.
* Most will have anti-virus and a firewall but how many of you encrypt your data or back it up in several locations? (assuming you run windows)
* What about passwords, you don’t use the same one for everything do you?
* Configure your software correctly.

What do you recommend to keep things secure? Leave your tips and recommendations in the comments.

According to a survey conducted by Modis International last year, 41% of IT employers will be looking to recruit through social networking in the year ahead. Traditional print advertising and job board advertising only came in at 30% a piece.

To quote the report:

“Online Social Networking looks likely be the real winner in 2010, with over 40% of people surveyed agreeing to using sites such as LinkedIn and Xing as part of their attraction activity.”

Yesterday, however, onrec.com reported on yet another poll by Modis that showed that “just 1 in 10 senior IT decision makers used the medium to attract new staff in the last 12 months.”

Could this have highlighted the difference between intent and implementation of a social media led recruitment strategy? I suspect the difference would have been down to which types of recruiters they asked, but they haven’t published the report on their website so it is difficult to check the details of it right now.

Author Bio: Article written by Taj Kang, Associate Director at Contractor Mortgages Made EasyTo contact us regarding this article e-mail: media@contractormortgagesuk.com

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